Stannane in extreme ultraviolet lithography and vacuum technology: Synthesis and characterization

In extreme ultraviolet (EUV) lithography, tin droplets evaporate and subsequently coat various surfaces including the collector mirrors. To clean off the tin, a hydrogen plasma is often used, but as a result, an unstable by-product, stannane (SnH4) is formed. The physicochemical characteristics of this gas, its formation in a plasma process, and its interaction with various materials have not been explored and understood completely. Here, the electron ionization mass spectrum of SnH4 is presented. All ten natural abundance isotopes were observed experimentally for each fragment, i.e., Sn+, SnH+, SnH2+, and SnH3+. Density functional electronic structure theory was used to calculate the optimized ground state geometries of these gas phase species and their relative stabilities and helped explain the absence of SnH4+ in the observed signals. The density of the liquid, its cracking pattern, and the surface morphology of its deposits were examined. The surface of the deposited tin film resulting from the decomposition and subsequent oxidation was characterized by x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy. The main species found at the surface were metallic tin and tin (II) oxide (SnO). The detailed characterization of stannane should help correctly identify it in EUV lithographic processes and develop approaches in the future to mitigate its decomposition and redeposition on the collector mirrors or vacuum chamber walls.